NARROW DEFEAT FOR LADIES

23 October 2012

Yeovil Town Ladies: 0 Reading FC Ladies: 1

READING Ladies moved to the top of the FA Women’s Premier League, Southern Division following a 1-0 victory over Yeovil Town Ladies. The Glovers had beaten the Royals a week previously in the League Cup, but Reading came back with a stronger team to take the points thanks to a 46th minute goal from Francesca Kirby. Yeovil remain sixth in the league, but have now played one more game than most of their competitors.

“This was a game where we knew Reading would want revenge for last week’s defeat against us, so we had to be on our game.” joint manager Nigel Williams said after the match. “It was disappointing to lose the game, but we have to learn from the experience, and come back stronger. To take a positive from the game; we only lost narrowly to one of the best teams in the league; but that was only cool comfort to the players after the game.

“The match started with some good football down the left, and Stace (Stacey Pearson) was getting some good results against their right back, beating her to the ball and delivering some good crosses for us to get on the end of. Reading played some good football today, but with heavy reliance on their number eleven (Francesca Kirby), who was very quick and had good ability. However, we should have read a lot more of the game that they were trying to play.”

“I said in the changing room before the game that it was all about who wanted it the most today,” Williams continued. “Unfortunately in a game like this you have to be honest and say that the visitors got the points because they were quicker to the ball and raised their game. We had some spectators today on the field, and in no way can you do this at this level. We have to support each other in every aspect of our play from the back to the front. I think if you asked any of the players today if they were happy with their performance you would have got an answer that we were not.

“Having said all that, I am happy to say that we were making chances to score and for periods of the game held possession well. We are going to get very few chances in any game in this league, and we need to punish when we can. Their goal came on 46 minutes and the number eleven (Francesca Kirby) took the ball on against our defence and to her credit struck the ball into the roof of the net.

“We will get back to the training ground now and pick ourselves up, dust off the negatives and look to the next match. We have had our post-match chat, and all the girls have accepted the constructive criticism that took place between the squad and management team. That is for us to digest and we will see the response that we get from it.

“We have some good players waiting for their chance to show us what they can do, and those in the squad know that there is this pressure on them this year. We have built a competitive squad and one that wants to remain at the level we are. I have said it time and time again, I have complete faith in the players we have, and that has not changed from this performance. They need to transfer what we see in training onto the pitch as a team.”